Patient medical parameter data is acquired, collated, stored and displayed for use in providing patient clinical care in hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare delivery settings. Patient medical parameter data may include vital signs ventilator information, infusion pump data associated with fluid delivery and other data. Such patient medical parameter data is typically displayed on a patient monitoring device screen in a trend indicative chart with a time axis. This type of chart is commonly termed a Flowsheet. A patient monitoring device is usually located at a patient bedside or nursing station in a hospital ward or in an intensive care, surgical or other location and may be connected to a network such as the Internet, a LAN, a WAN or an intra-net for acquiring patient parameter data from local sources (e.g., patient attached sensors) or remote sources (e.g., a remotely stored electronic patient record). The Flowsheet is an electronic chronological chart of patient information that substitutes for a paper vital sign Flowsheet. It is desirable that an electronic Flowsheet offer similar or better features and flexibility than a paper Flowsheet chart that it replaces
An electronic Flowsheet provides a trend indicative display covering a time period comprising user selectable patient parameter acquisition time intervals. A user selectable acquisition time interval is represented by a column in the Flowsheet and covers a time period (typically 3 minutes to 4 hours or another user selectable time interval) in which patient parameters are acquired. A problem occurs in known Flowsheet systems in selecting a parameter value to represent a particular parameter acquistion time interval in a trend indicative display. Specifically, in known systems a parameter value displayed in a particular acquistion time interval may not be representative of the time interval. This happens in known systems that label the acquisition time intervals with a displayed time value and automatically allocate a parameter value, received at a specific time, to a displayed labeled interval that precedes or includes the labeled time value. Similarly, it happens in known systems that automatically allocate a parameter value, received at a specific time, to a displayed labeled interval that follows or includes the labeled time value. Using these known systems, a displayed labeled interval may display a parameter value that is closer to an adjacent time interval and consequently present a misleading trend indicative display to a user. In such a known system, a manually entered parameter value or a parameter value indicated as accurate by a user may similarly be misleadingly displayed in an incorrect labeled time interval. A system according to invention principles addresses these problems and derivative problems.